AMIT KUMAR Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present petition under Article 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India has been filed by the petitioners with the following prayers:-

(2.) In brief the facts of the case are that Complaints dtd. 26/7/2023 and 9/9/2023 were filed by the petitioners who are the parents of two deceased students of B.Tech (Mathematics and Computing) at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, wherein, it was alleged that one student, namely, Ayush Ashna was found dead on 8/7/2023 at his Hostel Room No. WH-02, Seventh Floor, Udaygiri Hostel, IIT, New Delhi and another student, namely, Anil Kumar was found dead on 1/9/2023 in his Hostel Room No. EA-18, Ground Floor,Vidhyachal Hostel, IIT, New Delhi. It is alleged in the complaints that they were murdered with the conspiracy of IIT Faculty members to hide the real facts and both the students have been falsely shown to have committed suicide. It is further alleged in the complaints that both the students belonged to Scheduled Castes and they had informed their parents several times regarding caste discrimination by the faculty/staff of IIT, Delhi and therefore, the petitioners alleged that the faculty members are trying to save the real accused persons and the police officials are also not investigating the matter in a proper manner. In view of the above said complaints, an enquiry was conducted in both the cases.

(3.) As per the Status Report filed by the Ld. ASC, postmortem of the deceased Ayush Ashna was conducted vide PM No. 1500/23, wherein the cause of death was held to be "asphyxia as a result of hanging due to ligature". During the course of enquiry, statements of father, brother, other relatives and friends of the deceased were recorded in which it was found that the deceased had failed in some of the subjects in the prior semester exams due to which he was under depression. They further denied any foul play or any suspicion regarding the death of deceased. Father of the deceased, namely, Ramesh Kumar had later given a written complaint in the police station, in which he alleged that his son Ayush Ashna was facing caste based discrimination by his hostel mates and other faculty members during the beginning of his academic year 2019-2020 and he also suspected in the complaint that his son could not have taken such steps and someone might have killed his son with the connivance of faculty members. Therefore, to clarify the facts, the grade reports of Ayush Ashna were collected from IIT and it was found that during the 2nd semester of year 2022-23, he had failed in some of the subjects and got lower grades i.e., Grade F which stands for Very Poor in 5 out of 7 subjects. During further enquiry, several other students of IIT, Delhi who belonged to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes were also examined, wherein none of them reported any caste-based discrimination against any of them.